10 November 2017 (Reuters) – Australia needs to stop rejecting refugees and change its migration laws to come into line with international standards, the UN Human Rights Committee said in a report released overnight.

The committee, which comprises 18 independent experts and monitors countries’ compliance with a global human rights treaty, says Australia should come back in one year to explain what action it has taken to meet its concerns.

Australia has been widely criticised by the United Nations and rights groups for detaining asylum seekers who try to reach its shores by boat, even if they are found to be refugees, and keeping them on offshore processing centres in Nauru and Papua New Guinea.

The offshore detention policies are backed by the coalition government and the Labor opposition.

The United Nations has warned of a “looming humanitarian crisis” in the Manus Island centre in Papua New Guinea. [more]

9 November 2017 (BBC News) – Activists have scaled the Sydney Opera House to protest against Australia's treatment of asylum seekers in Papua New Guinea (PNG).

Australia held asylum seekers on PNG's Manus Island until last week when it closed a detention centre.

However about 600 of those men are refusing to leave, citing fears for their safety in the local community. Five people were arrested in Sydney on Thursday after trying to unfurl signs calling for the men to be evacuated.

Police prevented the protesters from displaying a large banner. Smaller placards read "evacuate Manus" and "Australia: world leaders in cruelty #BringThemHere". […]

"This brutal policy [of offshore detention] has reduced us as a nation and a community," one activist who climbed the Sydney Opera House, Marco Avena, said in a statement.

"We act today in the interest of our own humanity not just the humanity of those left on Manus Island." [more]